Tom Hardy has shared another enigmatic picture from the set of his upcoming film Venom.
The photo captioned ‘Home’ shows Tom relaxing on a couch in what appears to be someone’s house but is speculated to be Eddie Brock’s apartment.
Eddie Brock is, of course, the eponymous Venom, a disgraced reporter who bonds with an alien symbiote which bestows on him the powers of the amazing Spider-Man.
Just in case you don’t know who Venom is this clip from the wonderful Spider-Man the Animated Series explains him better than I ever could…
That’s right he’s a psychopathic bodybuilder…
Anyway, while the plot of the film’s a closely guarded secret at the moment, it’s rumoured that Venom will be facing off against his evil progeny and arch-enemy, the chaotic symbiote Carnage.
For those of you who didn’t spend the Nineties pouring over Marvel’s impenetrable comics, Carnage is a bloodthirsty alien parasite born of the Venom symbiote who bonded to the serial killer Cletus Cassidy.
The movie is planned to be the first in Sony’s shared ‘Spider-Man universe’ which it’s hoped will rival Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and will include beloved characters like Venom, the Silver Sable and Black Cat.
Interestingly the wall-crawler himself, the spectacular Spider-Man, will not be making an appearance in this new film universe despite it being his shared world.
The reasons why are confounding, to be completely honest, but are all to do with Sony’s deal with Disney which gives Disney creative control of the character while allowing Sony distribution rights.
It’s a confusing situation which isn’t made any easier by the brains behind the Marvel and Sony universe being confused as to what rights they actually have.
Only a few months ago producer Amy Pascal claimed that the Venom movie was set in the Marvel Universe.
She told German website Film Starts:
They will all take place in the world we’re now creating for Peter Parker. There’ll be adjuncts to it, there may be different locations, but they will all still be in the same world. And they will be connected to each other as well.
This confused the mastermind behind the Marvel Universe Kevin Feige who later denied Pascal’s claims.
When asked about Spidey making an appearance in Venom, he said:
No. No, I think the folks there are making a great Venom movie and I don’t know much about it but they’re off to a good start with Tom Hardy.
Way to be diplomatic, Kevin. Let’s be honest though this seems like the type of situation where one hand doesn’t know what the other’s doing.
Tom recently shared a first behind the scenes Insta, and got a huge reaction from fans.
Regardless though we’re excited about the return of Venom to the big-screen especially as his last appearance in Spider-Man 3 wasn’t just disappointing it was downright insulting.
Seriously, reducing a complex villain like Venom to whatever it was that Topher Grace was doing isn’t just bad, it fills us with venom!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.